childless by circumstance Archives

[WATCH NOW] Free Gateway Women Masterclass: ‘Navigating Friendships, Old and New’. (Recorded Feb 2024)

February 3, 2024 Jody Day 0

Childlessness can be experienced as a relational wound and can ask a lot of us and our friendships – Sometimes more than they can bear. As many of our friends move into parenting, coupling and families, we can find ourselves increasingly isolated and feeling like outsiders in family-centred relationships, social spaces and workplaces. Yet childless people have much to give as friends, and we deserve relationships with others who can be authentic, empathetic and available. In this free Gateway Women Masterclass, Sarah Roberts, Judy Graham and myself explored the different types, purpose and contexts of friendships in our lives, and […]

When the title of your book becomes the same as the news… ‘Living the Life Unexpected’

March 19, 2020 Jody Day 13

Today the 2nd edition of my book, Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children is published and the incredible global blogtour of my book that’s been going on since March 1st comes to a close. And yet, celebrating that feels like a crass thing to do right now, in the opening stages of a global pandemic that will change all our lives forever… Even though we’re in the run-up to UK Mother’s Day this weekend, normally a very anxiety-provoking time for British childless women, my website and inbox are almost silent on the […]

#LTLU Living the Life Unexpected (2nd Edition): World Blogtour, 1-19th March 2020

March 1, 2020 Jody Day 45

I’m so proud to announce that the fully-revised and updated 2nd edition of my much-loved book, ‘Living the Life Unexpected’ is being published by Bluebird (PanMacmillan) in the UK on 19 March 2020. With fifty (I know, fifty!) prestigious endorsements inside the front and back jacket, a lovely new cover, a new subtitle, How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children, and new content, (including a new introduction from me which outlines what’s new), I hope you’ll find it exciting whether you’re a returning reader or a brand new one. 25+ chances to win a personally dedicated […]

Distressed chicken looks at broken egg www.gateway-women.com

Forty, Single and Childless dammit!

February 12, 2020 Jody Day 9

From the archives: first published in October 2011, GW’s first year. I’m 55 now. Have you ever stopped to question why you want (or wanted) a baby so much? Do you find the question shocking? Taboo even? Well, I didn’t question it. And because I avoided this level of deep introspection, I failed to realise that I spent fifteen years of my life chasing a dream based partly on the premise that someone or something would make me feel fulfilled, content, satisfied, real, right, good… I thought a baby, a family, a home, what Zorba the Greek calls ‘the full catastrophe’ – […]

The invisible grief of the childless-by-circumstance woman

April 4, 2017 Jody Day 18

*** Childlessness has always been around, mostly because of reproductive infertility, as there are still very few parts of the world where it is possible for a woman to choose a life other than motherhood and tosupport herself economically to live that choice. However, whilst we think of ‘social infertility’ or ‘circumstantial infertility’ as something very new, in the UK, we’ve been here before. Whilst currently, one in five (20%) of women like me, born in the 1960s turned 45 without having had children (double that of our mother’s generation), this was also the case for those women born around 1900. […]

You’re not crazy, you’re grieving

March 27, 2013 Jody Day 36

Do any of the following sound like you? You find yourself hiding out in the bathroom at the office because of your colleagues’ endless babytalk… You walk home alone across town, in the freezing rain, just to get away from your ‘last’ childless friend’s announcement of her ‘miracle’ pregnancy… You avoid family events and spend most of your cash on holidays and retreats abroad during the Christmas season… You snap and bitch at your partner so much that you wouldn’t be surprised if they left you… You’ve given up dating all together… You couldn’t give a shit what you look […]

Only 88 Days Left to Your Next Childless Christmas!

September 27, 2012 Jody Day 11

A blog from 2012 There’s nothing quite like the nights drawing in as Autumn arrives to remind you that yet another childless Christmas is on its way. And if you combine it with being single, it can be particularly trying. Recently, over at The Bitter Babe (a fantastic US blog that pulls no punches as the author is anonymous), she writes of looking at her “12th holiday season alone.” Unlike the author of The Bitter Babe (tag line: Never Married. Over Forty. Slightly Bitter) I was in a 16-year relationship from my early twenties and married for 12 of them. And […]

Creating a new life for yourself as a childless woman

August 29, 2012 Jody Day 20

Creativity is one of the words that brings out the ‘woo woo’ faster than almost anything else. It’s as if it’s the one word guaranteed to make our inner bitch jump up and say “no thank you, we don’t do that around here!” before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth. Why is creativity so scary? I’ve come to believe that creativity is one of the roots of recovery from involuntary childlessness. However, it’s quite easy to become so comfortable with our “poor me I couldn’t have children” persona that we’re actually a bit reluctant to let go of it. I mean, […]

Death by Cupcake: The Fetishization of Motherhood

July 13, 2012 Jody Day 18

It is perhaps not a coincidence that as becoming a mother has become an unattainable option for many women and couples, the trappings of motherhood have become fetishized. From the designer buggies (a Range Rover buggy anyone?) to the cult of the yummy mummy and her yoga-flat tummy (what a ridiculous pressure to put on a woman who’s just given birth to a new human being!) to the mini-me designer clothes ranges and babyccinos (cappuccino without coffee, if you were wondering), children are treated like precious and breakable artefacts and motherhood has become a competitive and rarified sport. This is […]

Forty, single and childless, dammit!

October 25, 2011 Jody Day 45

Have you ever stopped to question why you want (or wanted) a baby so much? Do you find the question shocking? Taboo even? Well, I didn’t question it. And because I avoided this level of deep introspection, I failed to realise that I spent fifteen years of my life chasing a dream based partly on the premise that someone or something would make me feel fulfilled, content, satisfied, real, right, good… I thought a baby, a family, a home, what Zorba the Greek calls ‘the full catastrophe’ – was going to make me feel whole dammit! Yes, I loved my husband insanely-much […]

Light at the end of the tunnel

April 5, 2011 Jody Day 25

There comes a day in many a woman’s life when she wakes up and realises that things haven’t really gone exactly to plan… Where is my husband? My family? she says to herself. What was I thinking: being with him not being with him focusing on my career neglecting my career partying staying home travelling round the world not being all that bothered expecting it all to just somehow happen, organically? (delete as appropriate and tick all that apply). Shit. I’d better get: a wiggle on lose some weight go out more stay in more get married get divorced get […]